Coming up

Sorry guys! I don't have any new interesting recipes to share today--most of my weekend was spent (figuratively) head-butting a particularly picky child, who actually refused to eat anything for a 24-hour period after being served an enchilada containing beans. Oh, the horror. He eventually caved and ate 10 peanut butter crackers. Without a knife. I did sneak in the wheat crackers, at least.

I made a pilgrimage to Homegrown Meats in La Jolla, which specializes in organic, free-range, completely grass-fed beef. Expensive but oh so tasty, and no worries about nasty E. coli. I purchased a lovely flank steak, which I plan to sear just long enough to brown the outside, and which I will serve at some point later this week with a very nice bottle of Stag's Leap cab, to celebrate my recent engagement. Possibly I will also serve the world's greatest potatoes, which involves frying them in duck fat and truffle oil. They also had wild boar bacon, which is making me salivate just thinking about it. (Picky child: "I only like regular bacon! From a pig!" Me: "Wild boar IS pig." Pause. Child considers this. Picky child: "I only like regular bacon!")

Other culinary adventures on tap for this week: swiss chard stuffed with mozzarella and ricotta. Butternut squash stuffed with sausage and apples. Chorizo-tomato soup. And in honor of the waffle iron I got for Christmas, I'm planning a variation on an old Southern classic, chicken and waffles. Only: barbecued chicken, with caramelized-onion-and-jalapeno waffles.